Anti-corruption efforts can be limited by a lack of evidence of the drivers of corruption, which makes it difficult to identify appropriate and effective solutions. However, evidence-gathering on corruption is starting to focus more systematically on the complex social characteristics and informal rules that drive and sustain corrupt practices. Social norms research, in particular, is gaining attention in anti-corruption efforts and policymaking, as it serves as a diagnostic tool to assess the behavioural causes of various types of corruption and the social factors that create a tolerant environment for such practices.
Understanding both how corruption functions as a collective practice and the social markers that determine what actions are acceptable or disapproved of by citizens is crucial to improving the success of anti-corruption efforts. The social consequences of failing to adhere to social expectations have a powerful influence on how people behave as members of a society, and how they choose to act in different situations. This influence is also an important factor in determining whether the level of coordination and cooperation necessary for collectively and sustainably tackling corruption can be galvanized.
The Chatham House Africa Programme’s Social Norms and Accountable Governance (SNAG) project adopts an approach based on a social norms methodology to systematically test for shared beliefs and expectations that inform individuals’ behaviours and their choices to engage in or refrain from, or to accept or reject, corruption. With a primary focus on Nigeria, and working with the methodology developed by our research partners at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Social Norms and Behavioural Dynamics, SNAG implemented its second national household survey in Nigeria in 2018, investigating the social beliefs that motivate different forms of corruption. This briefing paper is one in a series of three, providing analysis of data from the different survey scenarios on three separate behaviours: the diversion of government funds for religious community use; bribery in exchange for improved grades in national examinations; and vote-selling.
The survey scenario focusing on the role of religious reasons in the acceptability of corruption assessed for expectations and beliefs about the diversion of public funds for the provision of religious goods, such as the construction of churches or mosques. This paper presents analysis of the data to show whether religious purposes or benefits play a role in social evaluations of corrupt behaviour.
The key messages from this research underscore the critical role played by social beliefs and expectations in sustaining corruption, and notes some challenges with relying on religious norms and language in anti-corruption efforts – especially in the design of anti-corruption messages. It also highlights the sticky problem with using religion and morality as interchangeable concepts as well as the pitfalls of grounding anti-corruption interventions in moral beliefs. Several studies of morality as a code of conduct have shown that while morality may be central to the practice of most religions, religion is not central to morality. In addition, moral rules tend to be independent of shared social beliefs – and practices driven by moral rules are therefore not influenced by what others think and believe. Corrupt practices tend to be interdependent and supported by what people think others in their community believe and do, which means that, in a context where corruption is socially embedded and the perception that ‘everybody does it’ is widespread, solutions must be grounded in changing a community’s beliefs and expectations, rather than relying on an individual’s moral code. Anti-corruption efforts that rely heavily on an individual’s moral code are invariably costly in social terms (i.e. status and a sense of belonging) especially when there is a tolerance and even tacit endorsement or expectation of corrupt behaviour.
